The Rule of the Spirit Kingdom
by SkeyNoSorrow
Summary: 1968, humans first try to travel to the mysterious celestial object named moon. But fact and fantasy cannot co-exist - so the man in the moon wants to take a desperate measure to ensure his survival. Pitch, however, is not on board with being consumed by his enemy. There is a way to avoid his and the Guardians' fate, but only, if he can get them to help him.
**In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined.**

 **-** Thomas Szasz

* * *

 _Head Into Darkness of Space_

 _Three Americans left the earth today on man's first voyage into deep space - destination moon._ Sunday News 1968

* * *

"Hello, Jack."

Pitch barely dodged a spike of ice the white-haired boy threw at him in response.

That had been to be expected.

Still, Jack Frost was the guardian he could talk the easiest to, so he was the first on his list.

"What are you doing here? How did you come back?!"

He sighed theatrically.

"There you try doing something good for once, and this is how you're treated. But you would know, wouldn't you, Jack?"

This time, the ice singed his hair. Looked like someone got better during his... time-out. But then again, he'd learned many interesting things because of it, so he wouldn't hold a grudge.

Not much, at least.

"What are you talking about? ...No, don't tell me. I don't care. Just get out of here or I'll make you."

"I'm so scaaared," he mocked, covering his mouth with his hands.

"Oh wait, I'm not."

"Just like you weren't the last time you showed up?"

The boy had the audacity to _smirk_. Like he had always been with the guardians, like he hadn't been tossed aside and ignored for centuries.

It made Pitch want to ignore everything the darkness had shown him and leave those arrogant usurpers to their fate.

Unfortunately, doing so meant he'd have to share it.

"You think you know fear, boy?

You think a few centuries of existential crisis mean you've experienced footsteps of dread following you, primal panic leaving no place for rational thought or the dark abyss of hopelessness and despair?"

Pitch leaned forward, almost touching the curved end of the staff the guardian had raised defensively.

His gold eyes bore into Jack's light blue ones.

"You know nothing of fear, Jack Frost," he whispered, almost gently.

Then, slowly, his mouth stretched into a grin full of grey teeth.

Jack stared at him like he'd been hypnotized. His words tended to have that effect.

But he'd wasted too much time, had gotten distracted.

Seemed like the note on the article would need to be enough.

"But soon, you will."

Jack took a step back and tightened his grip on the staff.

"And who'll teach me? You?"

"Oh no, not me."

He broke out into a grin.

"Didn't you notice, Jack? That the man in the moon gave up on us?"

Then he disappeared in a whirl of black smoke.

A newspaper page with something scribbled on it floated where he'd stood.

* * *

Toothiana's palace was as busy and _pink_ as always.

Pitch frowned; he disliked the cheerful, noisy atmosphere.

As much as he loathed to come here for anything but destruction, she'd likely be sympathetic.

"Pitch!"

The fairies stopped, taking a defensive stance around their queen.

Pitch sighed.

"Relax, I'm not here to steal any of your birds or teeth. That's so last year."

"Then what it is you want?"

They were still floating, ready to take flight or fight.

"For you to listen to me and help."

"We won't! And you can't-"

Looked like that hadn't calmed her. Pitch was too experienced an intimidator for his own good.

He started pacing, the fairies' eyes following his every move.

"That's what I'm talking about. None of you _listens._ I did some bad things, so?

What makes me so different from, let's say, Jack Frost? Why does he deserve a chance and I don't?"

"Jack is nothing like you! He's kind, loves children-"

The mini-fairies wings started fluttering excitedly in face of their queen's tirade.

"And the moon picked him? Before that, you did nothing. You didn't reach out or talk to him, didn't give him his memories even though he-"

"Stop it!"

She crouched in midair, her feathered arms covering her ear-shaped feathers.

"Ooh, touched a nerve there, did I? But that's not what I'm here for," he said, his smirk disappearing mid-sentence.

"Then why?"

She straightened and looked at him again, still tense, but the most relaxed she'd been since his appearance.

"To warn you. You always watch out for the dark, don't you? Those old, comfortable lines between light and dark, good and evil. So you never noticed.

Tell me, who is the man in the moon?"

With that, he disappeared, leaving yet another note.

* * *

"-yeah, I know. Wai', he's here."

The glowy thing the hare was holding to his ear made some noises, then it dulled.

He threw it away and started cracking his joints.

"I heah ye're spreadin' bull 'bout the man in the moon."

So it had been a communication device. Good, he had no notes left.

"I see you're still good for nothing but doodling on eggs."

The bunny threw one at him. Pitch evaded it, but when it exploded he inhaled some of the green smoke.

While he coughed, the bunny jumped at him, hitting him with his boomerang.

Pitch fell, but managed to shadowport behind him before touching the ground.

He had been trying to avoid shadowporting, since it made the guardians uncomfortable and while he refused to change his attitude (he still hated them, after all), he was smart enough to know that he needed them to at least marginally trust him.

Or else they were doomed.

Unfortunately, he needed all of them.

"But maybe, maybe you're not that stupid. Maybe you just ignore the signs, because it's more comfortable that way."

The giant rabbit turned around and lept at him.

But this time, he was prepared and disappeared in time.

"Or what explanation do you have for this?!"

Pitch opened his shadowgown. The right side of his chest was transparent.

The hare hesitated.

Then he scoffed, "So he feenally deceeded to do somethin' about ye. No surpreese theah."

"Really?" Pitch raised an almost non-existent eyebrow.

A shadow pierced through Easter's gauntlet, revealing the same translucent skin.

He jumped back and started nervously tapping his foot.

Pitch smiled.

"Believe what you will, but it will not make it any truer."

Bunny threw a boomerang at him.

Well... that could have gone better.

* * *

Morning robes did not suit North.

Especially ones that barely covered his very hairy chest.

Pitch grimaced.

How he loathed the time shift.

North was cursing his yetis under his breath while inspecting that glowy device.

It seemed to be broken.

Pitch coughed lightly, both because he wanted Santa's attention and the itch in his thoat since his encounter with Bunny.

The already broken communicator fell to the ground, shattering, as he grabbed his swords.

Pitch didn't know where they'd come from, but they were an annoyance.

How was he supposed to talk when everyone insisted on attacking him?

"I knou vhy you're here, Pitch Black," North said, in his usual accent.

It was almost worse than the rabbit's.

"Do you?" Pitch challenged nonchalantly.

"Yes, and I von't let you pit us against Manny!"

With that, he attacked.

This time, Pitch had no qualms about disappearing.

His shoulder still hurt from the giant bunny.

"Tell me how I'm wrong then," he said, hands clasped behind his back.

"That you know what will happen, when the moon is not so distant anymore. That you did not start to fade!"

Santa's attack was not unanticipated, but too fast to evade.

So he shielded his hands with darkness to stop the sword.

North attacked with the other, but Pitch whirled around, releasing his grip on the blade.

The Russian turned around, prepared to strike whenever Pitch showed himself.

But Pitch wouldn't.

"Where is your mark? Beneath that robe of yours or hidden by the beard? You surely realize what it means!"

"I trust Manny. He has led us trou many dangers, inclouding you."

"Oh yes, the famed generosity of the man in the moon. Giving fading spirits the power to fulfill children's wishes. But even with this power, all of you are only spirits-"

"Ve ar mor than you'll ever be. Ve ar believed in, luved!"

Oh the arrogance of the favored ones.

"And what good is that, when you'll disappear anyway? And mind you, I'm including myself here. Or do you this I'm doing this for my own enjoyment?

That I _like_ trying to work with you, who banished me to the shadows? Don't get me wrong; this changes nothing between us. But I don't want to disappear and neither do you. Don't fool yourself - you need me as much as I need you."

"And vhat would ve need _your_ help for?"

"To fight the moon, of course. Who is better suited for that than the darkness?"

* * *

"Sandman."

The short man on the sandcloud turned around, no surprise in his features.

Only wariness and resignation.

He had been easy to find, even though Pitch couldn't shadowport to him like to the others - the numerous strands of gold sand had made it too easy.

"What, no greeting for your old foe?"

Sandman pushed all of Pitch's buttons without even trying. They were polar opposites, enemies by nature (because the moon had made it so).

There was only place for one of them in this world, it was consume or be consumed.

Pitch felt that and wanted to escape or attack, do anything but talk and open himself for an attack with no back-up plan.

Sandy pulled at his cloak, revealing a transparent shoulder, contrasting his almost glowing skin.

Wasn't it ironic, that the one he wanted to talk to the least was the most willing to listen?

"So you understand what we have to do?"

The Sandman nodded.

Pitch smiled. As uncomfortable as Sandy made him, it was reassuring to have him on his side.

Then, suddenly, he felt cold pierce him.

"Good job, Sandy," someone said from behind him.

Sandman nodded, his eyes downcast.

Pitch struggled to turn around.

Behind him, the guardians had appeared.

Jack's face was scrunched up in more concentration than Pitch knew he needed, Toothiana's wings twitched, and Nort and Bunny had their hands/paws on the hilt of their weapons.

All their eyes were hard, unyielding.

He hissed at them.

How dare they!

He had been trying to help for the first time since becoming the boogeyman, even if it was for his own sake.

He had only tried to help!

Pitch raised his arm, ready to do something, anything, just to drag them down with him.

They had to feel how he felt, even if it caused him to disappear, he had to make them-

Something warm touched his forehead.

It wasn't hot, nor did it hurt.

 _No, no, no, this cannot be, this cannot be, I have to go go go-_

Pitch gasped and tried to escape the pleasant touch, despite being impaled on Jack's ice.

Even ice so piercing cold it burned was better than the calming sensation that made him want to give up, go limb on the spear like a sleeping human.

Like a dead human.

Sandman's eyes were just a shade darker than his own and too full of empathy. It was unbefitting of a traitor.

It made him want to snarl, even through his terror, because even now they were continuing the charade of being good.

It made him want to laugh, because not so much better than him after all, hm, North?

It made him want to scream and tear the world apart, because if he had to disappear, than so did everyone else.

As it was, it only made him whimper, "No, please, please stop", like he was one of his own victims.

His pride hurt, but what was hurt pride against dissolving like he'd never existed at all?

Anything to stop this!

Something ancient and sad flashed in those eyes so similar to his own, but the warmth from the hand on his forehead only spread.

He was going to die, worse than die, disappear. Poof, just like that.

And no miraculous return for him.

Time, he needed more time, to come up with a plan and escape, because he _wouldn't let it end this way_. It just couldn't!

Speak. He wasn't human, had no lung to be pierced.

One tiny moment of hesitation, anything at all would be enough.

"You can't do this! It must be all of us!"

"Theah's no need for tha'," rabbit answered, unusually solemn.

"Theah's no spayce travel anymoah."

"What happened to you being oh so good and righteous?! Stopping humanity's advance for your own benefit, how unusually cunning of you!"

"It is necessary. Ve ar needed. And vitout dhe moon, ve cannot exist."

You are not, North didn't say, but he might as well have.

And Pitch started laughing.

Like he'd laughed when, afraid to death of even his own shadow, he'd seen the man in the moon consume his own guardians.

There was something strangely therapeutical about seeing your glorified enemies lose their principles.

He saw their hard eyes, their somber faces and knew that, no matter how much they denied it, they knew too.

That there was nothing heroical about what they'd done.

"Then go ahead," he sneered, putting on one final front, one final bluff, "like the obedient little puppets you are. Kill me and you'll never be free.

Everything will depend on the whim of someone we don't even know, someone who just went ahead and decided our lives for us!"

He had addressed no one, but his words were intended for Jack.

Centuries, he thought, abandoned and alone.

Just one hesitation.

But the spirit didn't falter.

To his surprise, it was even him who answered, as if he'd understood.

"The moon might have decided for us, but these are the lives we chose for ourselves. We'll do anything in order to make children happy."

And that was when he knew the reason he'd laughed.

They were the same. It just so happened that their existence brought happiness, while his fear.

Sandy's warmth was still spreading and only now Pitch realized he glowed, emitting the same calming golden light as the Sandman.

If this was what he felt like all the time, it was no wonder that he was as serene as he was.

Pitch struggled to hate even his killers.

They were so pitiful, after all.

Pitch smirked and looked at all of them for one last time.

Finally, uncertainty in their gazes.

But it was too late.

For him, for them.

This was so familiar.

He'd died before, hadn't he? He'd tried so hard to forget.

How curious; even though tomorrow had been supposed to be moonless, it was almost full tonight.

Not that it mattered anymore.

He'd lost.

Then, for the first time in both lifetimes, he gave in to the warmth, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

 _Stop believing in the man in the moon or he'll stop believing in us. -PB_

* * *

 **In the spirit kingdom, believe or be believed in.**

* * *

A/N:

I hope you enjoyed my entry for the, now closed, twist fate challenge! It was about reversing heroes and villains, word limit 3000.

It's crossposted from wattpad and didn't enter the finale, but I still like how it turned out.

To credit, to whom credit is due, big thanks to my sister for making the cover! You can find other arts from her on Instagram, under the name .Art

Also, let's just pretend the movie took part during the 20th century. Artistic freedom and all;P

Anyways, thanks for reading:)

~Skey


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